A Miserable Estate
The doctrine of man's
depravity in the unregenerate
A True Map of Man’s Miserable Estate by Nature
by Christopher Love
Edited by Don
Kistler
[Christopher
Love, minister of St. Laurence-Jewry in London, was beheaded at the age of 29
for treason during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Thomas Manton preached
his funeral sermon. Among others accused, but not convicted or executed, were
Thomas Watson and several other prominent London ministers. Love declared his
innocence to the very end. The letters written between Christopher and his wife
Mary, as he sat in the Tower of London awaiting his death in August, 1651, are
full of love and poignant affection. If it pleases God to allow it, Soli Deo
Gloria will begin work shortly be reprinting some of Love’s writings. This
abridgment is from the 1806 edition.]
I will
show you the eight particular properties of a man without Christ.
1. Every man without Jesus Christ is a base man.
2. He is a bondman.
3. He is a beggarly man.
4. He is a blind man.
5. He is a deformed man.
6. He is a disconsolate man.
7. He is a dead man; and
8. He is a damned man.
These
are the eight properties of a man without Jesus Christ. First, every man
without Jesus Christ is a base man. Though you are born of the blood of nobles,
and though you are of the offspring of princes, yet if you have not the royal
blood of Jesus Christ running in your veins, you are a base man.
In
Daniel 11:21 and Psalm 15:4, you read of vile persons. Such is every man
without Christ, and he must be so, because it is only Christ who can take off
that baseness wherein every one is by nature. In Isaiah 43:4, God says, Since thou wast precious in Mine eyes, thou becamest honorable. And, in I Peter 2:7, Unto you who believe, Christ is precious. It is Jesus Christ who puts a
diamond of honor and glory upon men. They are all base men who are out of Jesus
Christ, and that in these three respects:
1. They
come from a base origin.
2. They
commit base actions; and
3. They
aim at base ends.
Every
man who is out of Christ comes from a base origin. He does not have his origin
from the Spirit, but from the flesh. He does not proceed from God who is the
Father of lights, but from the devil who is the prince of darkness.
He is
base because he commits base actions. All the actions and services of a
Christ-less man, at best, are but as filthy rags and dead works. A man, in his
unconverted state, is the slave and drudge of the devil, a worker of
wickedness, still fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, being
given over to vile affections.
He is a
base man who is without Christ because he aims at base ends in whatever he
does, and that two ways. (1) In this world he aims at base ends in his hearing,
reading, praying, and profession of religion. He minds himself and his own ends
in all that he does. (2) All his actions tend to base ends in another world. As
the actions of a man in Christ tend to salvation, so the actions of a
Christ-less man tend to damnation.
Second,
a man without Christ is not only a base man, but a bondman. This Christ tells
you in John 8:36, If the Son shall make you free,
then are you free indeed, intimating that if you do not have an interest in Christ to free
you from the slavery of sin and Satan, you are slaves indeed. This and slavery,
likewise, consists in three particulars: 1. they are slaves to sin; 2. to the
devil, and 3. to the law.
1.
Every Christ-less man is a slave to sin. In John 8:34, Jesus says, Verily I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of
sin, and in 2
Peter 2:19, While they promise them liberty,
they themselves are servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of
the same he is brought into . Every man, by nature, is a slave to his lusts, a slave to sin,
and to the creatures. God made man over all the creatures, but man has made
himself servant to all the creatures.
2. He
is not only in and slavery to sin, but to the devil, too. The last two verses
of 2 Timothy 2 say, in meekness instructing those
that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance, to the
acknowledging of the truth, that they may recover themselves out of the snare
of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.
3. He
is in to the law, that is, he does nothing in obedience to the law; and this is
the great misery of a man without Christ. He is bound to keep the whole law of
God. There is a very strange expression in Revelation 18:13. Saint John tells
there that all those who did worship the beast shall cry,
‘Woe and alas,’ for Babylon is fallen, and shall cry for the slaves and souls
of men. All
wicked men are slaves to antichrist, to sin and to the law, and this is the
great misery of an unregenerate man.
Third,
you are not only a base and a bondman, but a beggarly man, too, without Jesus
Christ; for all the treasures of grace and mercy are hid and locked up in
Christ as in a common magazine or storehouse. Colossians 2:13, In Him are hid all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. If you are out of Christ, you
have nothing. As it says in Revelation 4:17, Thou sayest thou
art rich and increased in goods, and hast need of nothing, and knowest not that
thou art poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. You will grant that he is a
poor and beggarly man that lacks these four things: meat for his belly, clothes
for his back, money for his purse, and a house to put his head in. Why, in all
these respects, every man who is out of Christ is a beggarly man.
1. A
beggarly man is one who has no meat to put in his belly, and all you who have
no interest in Jesus Christ are beggarly, in this regard, because you do not
feed upon that bread of life, nor drink of the water of life, the Lord Christ,
whose flesh is meat indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed, without which your
souls will starve for hunger.
2. You
will say he is a poor man who has no clothes to put upon his back, Thus every
man out of Christ is not only poor, but naked, Revelation 3:17, Thou knewest not that thou wert poor and miserable, and blind and
naked. That man
who is not clothed with the long robes of Christ’s righteousness is a , and is
exposed to the wrath and vengeance of Almighty God. Those men have a cloak to
cover their sinful nakedness and shame who are clothed with the robes of
Christ’s righteousness. It is said of Jacob that he obtained the blessing from
his father by being clad in the garments of his eldest brother, and so we are
only blessed by God our Father as we are clothed with the robes of our elder
brother Jesus Christ.
3. That
man is a beggarly man who has no money in his purse. So, though your purses are
full of gold, if your hearts are not full of grace, you are very beggarly men,
Luke 16:11. Grace is the only true riches. All the durable riches are bound up
in Christ.
4. And
lastly, he is a beggarly man who does not have a house to put his head in, who
is destitute of a house to lodge in and a bed to lie on. So, you who have no
interest in Christ, when your days are expired and death comes, you do not know
what to do nor where to go. You cannot say with the godly man that when death
takes you from here that you shall be received into everlasting habitations.
You cannot say that Christ has gone before to prepare a place for you in
heaven.
So,
then, in these four particulars you see that a Christ-less man is a very
beggarly man, having neither food for his body, nor clothes for his back, nor
money for his purse, nor a house to put his head in, unless it is a dungeon of
darkness with devils and damned spirits.
Fourthly,
another property of a man without Christ is that he is a blind man. Revelation
3:17, And knewest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and
poor, and blind, and naked. Hence it is that wicked men, during their unregeneracy, are
called "darkness." Ephesians 5:8, You were sometime
darkness, but now are you light in the Lord, walk as children of the light. So light is come into the world,
and yet men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.
Jesus
Christ is to the soul that which the sun is to the earth. Take away the sun
from the earth and it is nothing but a dungeon of darkness. So take away Christ
from the soul and it is nothing but a dungeon of the devil. Though there is a
Christ in the world, if the heart is shut and Jesus Christ is not in you, you
are in a state of darkness and blindness.
Fifth, every man without Christ is a deformed man, as you
may read in Ezekiel 16:3-14. Thus saith the Lord God, ‘Thy
nativity is in the land of Canaan, thy father was an Amorite, and then, in the
6th verse, When I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thy blood, I said unto
thee, ‘Live,’ yea I said unto thee, when thou wast in thy blood, ‘live.’ When a poor child lies weltering
in its blood, not swaddled, nor washed, nor looked after, what a sad condition
is it in? And thus were you, says God. But then read on in the 7th verse, I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou
hast increased and waxen great. Then in the 14th verse, Thy renown went forth
among the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through My comeliness that
I had put upon thee, said the Lord, intimating that, before Christ looks upon a soul,
he lies weltering in his own blood and not able to help himself, but he becomes
comely through Christ’s comeliness that is cast upon him. If you lack Christ,
you lack your best ornament.
A man without Christ is like a body full of sores and
blotches. He is like a dark house without light and a body without a head, and
such a man must be a deformed man.
Sixth, another property of a Christ-less man is that he is a
disconsolate man. Christ is the only spring of comfort and the fountain of all
joy and consolation. Take away Christ from the soul and it is as if you took
the sun away from the firmament. If a man has all the blessings in the world
and lacks Christ, he lacks that which should sweeten all the rest of his
discomforts. In Exodus 15:23-25, you read of the waters of Marah. They were so
bitter that none could drink of them, but then the Lord showed Moses a tree
which, when he had cast into the waters, made the waters sweet. Why, Jesus
Christ is this tree. He sweetens the bitterness of any outward affliction and
he can make all your sorrows to flee away. There is nothing in the world that
sweetens the comforts and gives us joy in the possession of the things of this
world more than having an interest in Jesus Christ.
It is not, beloved, having much of the creature in your
house, but having Christ in your hearts that makes you live comfortably. All
the bread you eat will be bread of sorrow if you do not feed upon the body of
Jesus Christ; and all your drink will be but wine of astonishment if you do not
drink of the blood of Jesus Christ. Without an interest in Christ, all your
comforts are but crosses, and all your mercies are but miseries, as in Job
20:22, In the fulness of his sufficiency, he shall be in straits. Though you have abundance of
the things of this life, though you have more than enough, yet if you do not
have an interest in Christ, you have nothing.
Seventh, another property of a man out of Christ is that he
is a dead man. You know that common place in I John 5:12, He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath
not life. Hence
we read in Ephesians 2:1 that unregenerate men are dead in trespasses
and sins, and
the reason is that Christ is a believer’s life. Colossians 3:3, Our life is hid with Christ in God. Take away Christ from a man
and you take away his life, and take away life from a man and he is a dead lump
of flesh. Unregenerate men are termed strangers to the life of godliness and,
therefore, must be dead in their sins. Though they do not enjoy the life of a
man, yet if the life that he lives is not by faith in the Son of God, he is
spiritually dead. For example, you know a dead man feels nothing. Do what you
will to him, he does not feel it. So a man who is spiritually dead does not
feel the weight of his sins, though they are a heavy burden pressing him down
into the pit of hell. He is a stranger to the life of godliness, past feeling,
given over to a reprobate sense, so that he does not feel the weight and burden
of all his sins.
A dead man has a title to nothing here in this life. Though
he was ever so rich, yet he loses his title to all, and his riches go from him
to another. So, being spiritually dead, you can lay claim to nothing, neither
to grace, nor mercy, heaven, or happiness by Jesus Christ.
A dead man is still rotting and returning to the dust from
whence he came; and so a man who is spiritually dead falls from iniquity to
iniquity, and from one sin to another, until at last he drops down into hell
fire.
Eighth, the last property of a Christ-less man is that he is
a damned man. If he lives and dies without Christ, he is a damned man. So says
John 3:18, He that believeth not, he is condemned already. He is as surely
damned as if he were in hell already. He who is without Jesus Christ must go
without heaven, for heaven and glory and happiness are entailed upon him.
Heaven is given to none but those who are heirs together with Christ, and
therefore, you who are without Christ must be without heaven, and consequently
without happiness and salvation, and therefore you must be damned.
So that you see in these eight particular properties, in
what a sad and miserable condition every Christ-less man is in, and oh! that
what has now been declared concerning the wretchedness of a Christ-less man
might provoke every soul among you to a holy eagerness and earnestness of spirit,
above all your getting to labor to get Jesus Christ.